Something I find interesting is the apathy surrounding the volume of firearms in circulation. So many things that can be done and undone, but when it comes to firearms, I hear almost universally that the ones on the Earth today are going to be here until the end of human existence and beyond. Is that belief unique to firearms or are there other manmade things people are universally convinced we're stuck with forever?

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It seems like alcohol gets a free pass. Over 88k alcohol related deaths per year, almost 10k alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in 2014 in the US alone.. Globally in 2012, 3.3 million deaths attributable to alcohol.
No one says a peep about that and it is ecouraged to drink. You can't go a block in most cities without seeing some sort of establishment or advertisement related to drinking. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

And since the US legal system is so hopelessly buggered, with violent criminals either skating or getting out in a couple months and no one reforming unless they are on death row, the USA is a dangerous place. I've seen it firsthand in Detroit, and in Indianapolis, and now here in rural Vermont, even. Detroit has gotten better since they started concealed carry (I don't know if it's the cause of it getting better), and there is not much violent crime here (it might or might not have anything to do with the small population, but in case it is pertinent to anyone, Vermont is an open carry state), but what little violent crime there is, 90% of it is perpetrated by people known to be insane, many who have been in and out of prison before.

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It is not only the legal system, but also the health care system in terms of mental health. Individuals who would have been in long-term psychiatric care facilities last century are now in group homes or fending for themselves. Deinstitutionalization in the eighties led to far more schizophrenic individuals being homeless.

On a personal note, I lived in Indy for a short time and worked in the Shadeland area. That area is still not good at all.

It seems like alcohol gets a free pass. Over 88k alcohol related deaths per year, almost 10k alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in 2014 in the US alone.. Globally in 2012, 3.3 million deaths attributable to alcohol.
No one says a peep about that and it is ecouraged to drink. You can't go a block in most cities without seeing some sort of establishment or advertisement related to drinking. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

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Define "free pass"? There are age restrictions on alcohol consumption, there's regulations on who can sell what where and when, obvious regulations on where you can consume alcohol, and what you can do under the influence of alcohol and specifically how much you've consumed. All of these laws have been put in place specifically to limit alcohol related deaths.

Alcohol is regulated infinite times more than fire arms. Do you think alcohol deaths would be any lower if you could drink as much as you want and get in a car or you could drink as much as you want at any age? If you could buy hard alcohol in any store, at any time of day on any day everywhere? Probably not but for some reason we're fed the line that less regulation on fire arms somehow reduces deaths.

I'm also a little confused why you picked out my quote. I was asking an honest question that doesn't seem at all related to your point.

Define "free pass"? There are age restrictions on alcohol consumption, there's regulations on who can sell what where and when, obvious regulations on where you can consume alcohol, and what you can do under the influence of alcohol and specifically how much you've consumed. All of these laws have been put in place specifically to limit alcohol related deaths.
Alcohol is regulated infinite times more than fire arms. Do you think alcohol deaths would be any lower if you could drink as much as you want and get in a car or you could drink as much as you want at any age? If you could buy hard alcohol in any store, at any time of day on any day everywhere? Probably not but for some reason we're fed the line that less regulation on fire arms somehow reduces deaths.
I'm also a little confused why you picked out my quote. I was asking an honest question that doesn't seem at all related to your point.

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Free pass as in there are far more deaths due to alcohol than firearms, yet the MSM or the general public isn't harping on that. I don't know about you, but I personally have known more people that have lost their lives due to drunk drivers than to firearms; in spite of all these regulations in place.
There are plenty of regulations on firearms as well. It's not like anyone can walk into their local 7-11 and purchase a Mac11 like many are insinuating.

I'm actually not arguing for deregulation, I would like to see a more uniform set of laws throughout the states. Also, more strict background checks and proper licensing and insuring of guns like you would a car.

I picked out your quote because you left the question out there "Is that belief unique to firearms or are there other manmade things people are universally convinced we're stuck with forever? " Perhaps you meant that firearms as an object last infinitely, but it's hard to tell the way your question is worded. I took it as, are there other manmade objects that we will be living with forever in spite of it's deadliness?

It is not only the legal system, but also the health care system in terms of mental health. Individuals who would have been in long-term psychiatric care facilities last century are now in group homes or fending for themselves. Deinstitutionalization in the eighties led to far more schizophrenic individuals being homeless.

On a personal note, I lived in Indy for a short time and worked in the Shadeland area. That area is still not good at all.

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I'm not necessarily for 1960's style sanitariums, but there has to be something better than placing all these people in the situation where they necessarily end up either homeless or in prison.

Seriously, gun control or no, I strongly believe that this issue you brought up simply needs to be addressed. As long as people are screaming about gun control or gun bans or homosexuals or who pees in which bathroom, or whatever, this really important issue gets insufficient attention.

EDIT to avoid double post:

I just saw in the news where Trump had said some things suggesting night club patrons wear concealed weapons in response to this, and got push-back from the NRA, to the point where he had to go back and say that he never said what he said and instead said something else. Demonstrating:

1. How much Trump has learned how to lie and spin like a true politician (making me wonder why his supporters continue to say they support him because he is not like most politicians)
2. How Trump is more extreme than the NRA, which I feel is already somewhat extreme.
3. How nobody really "get's it" in my mind's eye. We are missing the point. I feel if I was drowning in a sink because the water was left on, and two people could save me simply by turning the water off, I might still die, because, if the two people were democrat and republican, they'd just have to have a gun debate before taking any action.

I'm not sure what, precisely, you're getting at with your first statement, but if people can hire a hitman or purchase a weapon off of the dark web using bitcoins, then I'm not at all seeing how one should expect a decrease in violent crime as a direct result of that.

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Let me try to elaborate, then, because this is actually kind of potentially interesting.

I think there are probably two types of violent crime - crime that was always intended to be violent, like murder or rape, and crime where there was some other objective but things escalated into violence. Possibly a third, actually, as I think about it - violent crime where the presence of some other criminal activity creates the potential for violent crime to occur.

Take selling illegal drugs as an example - production obviously has to happen in the "real world," as does consumption. But distribution can now be handled largely over the net, it seems - you work out a deal on Silk Road and pay in bitcoins. I'm afraid I'm not 100% up on how physical delivery works out, but I'd assume that it can be done via mail...? Compare this to the conventional distribution model, where you have dealers on the street with large stashes of (valuable) drugs carrying large amounts of cash, protected by guys carrying large numbers of weapons. One, the possibility for miscommunication is pretty high in a deal, and it's possible that even a well-intentioned deal can end in someone getting shot. Two, and probably more importantly, a drug dealer basically has a giant target on his back - he has no legal protections, yet is carrying a large amount of drugs, money, and weapons, and is in "control" of the drug market in a section of the city. Come in with your own group of guys with guns, mow them down with the element of surprise, and congrats - you now have a lot of money, a lot of drugs, and a lot of guns, and your own claim to a particular chunk of a neighborhood's drug deal. Violence in the drug trade can become VERY profitable.

Strip out the physical-world part of distribution, make and receive payments in a perfectly secure cryptocurrency, and work out a deal through a digital and secure communications network such that the parties never have to meet in person... It wouldn't surprise me that suddenly dealing drugs becomes a lot less violent.

Let me try to elaborate, then, because this is actually kind of potentially interesting.

I think there are probably two types of violent crime - crime that was always intended to be violent, like murder or rape, and crime where there was some other objective but things escalated into violence. Possibly a third, actually, as I think about it - violent crime where the presence of some other criminal activity creates the potential for violent crime to occur.

Take selling illegal drugs as an example - production obviously has to happen in the "real world," as does consumption. But distribution can now be handled largely over the net, it seems - you work out a deal on Silk Road and pay in bitcoins. I'm afraid I'm not 100% up on how physical delivery works out, but I'd assume that it can be done via mail...? Compare this to the conventional distribution model, where you have dealers on the street with large stashes of (valuable) drugs carrying large amounts of cash, protected by guys carrying large numbers of weapons. One, the possibility for miscommunication is pretty high in a deal, and it's possible that even a well-intentioned deal can end in someone getting shot. Two, and probably more importantly, a drug dealer basically has a giant target on his back - he has no legal protections, yet is carrying a large amount of drugs, money, and weapons, and is in "control" of the drug market in a section of the city. Come in with your own group of guys with guns, mow them down with the element of surprise, and congrats - you now have a lot of money, a lot of drugs, and a lot of guns, and your own claim to a particular chunk of a neighborhood's drug deal. Violence in the drug trade can become VERY profitable.

Strip out the physical-world part of distribution, make and receive payments in a perfectly secure cryptocurrency, and work out a deal through a digital and secure communications network such that the parties never have to meet in person... It wouldn't surprise me that suddenly dealing drugs becomes a lot less violent.

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I see your point now. Keep in mind, though, that the site also sold illegal weapons for a short time, and even had a marketplace for hiring contract killers. In fact, its operator was initially charged with procuring murder, but the charge was later reduced to money laundering and computer hacking.

To your point, though, even in hiring a killer to kill a person online might result in net less violence than hiring one in person, since the killer might kill his employer as well as his target if they meet in person, in order to collect more money, or maybe he's just crazy.

I see your point now. Keep in mind, though, that the site also sold illegal weapons for a short time, and even had a marketplace for hiring contract killers. In fact, its operator was initially charged with procuring murder, but the charge was later reduced to money laundering and computer hacking.

To your point, though, even in hiring a killer to kill a person online might result in net less violence than hiring one in person, since the killer might kill his employer as well as his target if they meet in person, in order to collect more money, or maybe he's just crazy.

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Well, and let me mention in advance how much of a scumbag I feel like talking this dispassionately about violent crime...

...presumably the demand for contract killing is pretty inelastic, that the number of people who want to hire someone to kill someone isn't going to fluctuate much based on the mechanism of the hire. I could if anything see it picking up slightly if you could handle it all via Silk Road and pay in bitcoin, which is a little more anonymous than, say, Craigslist and PayPal, but at the end of the day there just aren't that many people who want someone dead enough to pay someone to do it.

Relatedly, it may make it a little easier to deal in weapons in the black market, which may boost violence at the margins, too.

But, I'd think the major change would be the reduction in let's call it "frictional violence," where people are getting killed or put in vulnerable positions as a result in nonviolent crime.

It seems like alcohol gets a free pass. Over 88k alcohol related deaths per year, almost 10k alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in 2014 in the US alone.. Globally in 2012, 3.3 million deaths attributable to alcohol.
No one says a peep about that and it is ecouraged to drink. You can't go a block in most cities without seeing some sort of establishment or advertisement related to drinking. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

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Missed this earlier. Randy is right - I WISH firearms were as heavily regulated as alcohol.